Chapter 7 #2
Within ten minutes, the entire 12,000 square feet of living space of my parents’ Central-Park-adjacent penthouse is teeming with people. People I know, people I don’t, and people I’m fairly certain found their way in off the street.
Gunnar’s violin teacher from six years ago dances in the corner with a group of women I’ve never seen before, and the man—boy—who set it all in motion is still missing.
I have three missed calls from Kline Brooks, ten from Georgia Brooks, and I just got a text from Julia that she and whatshisface will be here any minute. Apparently, his car got stuck in traffic on their way uptown.
My ears buzz, and my throat is thick with danger. I don’t know how I’m going to get myself out of this one, and she’s not even coming by herself.
Gunnar is right in one way—this was not a good plan.
I need a new plan. One that has fewer outside factors and more Ace factor. One I’m in complete control of. It’ll be a grand plan. The best plan.
I just don’t know what that is yet or how I’m going to put it into action with all these fucking people inside my parents’ penthouse.
But surely I’ll figure something out. I hope. I pray.
Succumbing slightly to the error of my ways, I head for the kitchen and fill a cup from the kegs that arrived right when Gunnar said they would.
I haven’t seen him since he disappeared, but I have seen a blind woman, a stripper with a peg leg, and a man with a fortune-telling goat.
I’ve been too busy, you know, freaking the fuck out to let him read me yet, but he seems to be a big hit with all the ladies in attendance.
When the elevator opens and reveals Julia, I set my cup down on the counter, smooth my hands down my shirt, and rush over to her.
Crusty McJockface follows her like a poodle on a fucking leash, his big, beefy hand at the small of her back.
I see red and blue and green and every other color of the damn rainbow as I try to keep my tongue in my mouth and my brain from exploding.
“Oh my God, Ace. This is…insane. We were downstairs waiting for a turn in the elevator for, like, ten minutes before Drew forced our way into this one.”
My teeth clench. “It’s fucking Ripley’s Believe It or Not in here tonight, Lia. There’s a man with a goat somewhere, and if I’m not mistaken, I saw our middle school principal coming out of the bathroom before. Gunnar invited his entire contact list—including your parents.”
She laughs. “Well, that explains the three screeching voice mails I’ve gotten from my mother and the cryptic text from my father about ‘these damn Kellys.’”
“Did you talk to your dad? Has he talked to my dad?”
“Yes. He just texted me that your parents were in a helicopter after landing in Westchester.”
“Oh God. So, they’ll be here soon.”
“According to my dad, yes. They left the Bahamas earlier today. They thought Gunnar fucking drowned. My dad is the one who told them he was home.”
“My stomach hurts,” I mutter as the meat sweats bubble my guts.
I haven’t had any meat—or any other food for that matter since Julia’s date had me all fucking torn up—but it doesn’t matter.
I’m one sighting of my dad away from explosive diarrhea.
I’m a big dude, but Thatcher Kelly is bigger in all the ways that count.
Muscle, sheer determination, number of fucks he’s lost the will to give.
I might as well make peace with God now because I’m pretty sure I’ll be meeting him soon.
“Are you okay?” Julia asks, pushing me toward the couch that’s officially relocated to the wall by the linen closet and sitting me down. “You look clammy.”
As she finishes asking, the elevator doors open again, and a pig with a service vest comes running out.
My parents’ pig Philmore, a pet born of a ridiculous prank war between my parents, is in his twenties and aging considerably, but he’s still got some pep in his step.
Especially, I suppose, when he’s arriving to a party in his home with all manner of YouTube starlets and TikTok influencers in attendance.
People start cooing and freaking out at his cuteness, but I feel a different sense of doom. His arrival heralds the arrival of my parents.
Julia stands at my side, a hand squeezing steadily at my shoulder as my parents step inside, surveying the scene around them. They’re both wearing sunglasses—even though it’s ten p.m.—so I can’t get a good read on them, but they don’t start screaming right away.
I pat Julia’s hand twice before standing and turning to whisper in her ear. “If I don’t make it back, just know that I loved you.”
She giggles, not taking me seriously at all, which is just fucking perfect, really. Truly, it’s right on par for how this whole damn night has gone anyway.
“Go on, buddy,” she reassures. “It’s going to be fine. This is Thatch and Cassie we’re talking about, not the Kennedys. They’ve seen this before.” Her head whips around as the pirate stripper walks by. “Except maybe that.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Are those your parents?” Whatshisface asks in his big, lumbery, dumb voice.
I don’t nod or answer, but Julia does, her little laugh making my skin crawl because it’s directed at the wrong fucking guy—aka not me. “Yes. They are two of the wildest people you’ll ever meet, which honestly explains their youngest son. It’s the full power of their DNA combined. I think—”
As she keeps talking, turning to look into his eyes while he plays with the ends of her hair like he has any fucking right, I walk away. Toward the flogging. Toward the yelling. Toward hell.
Honestly, at this point, even a bloody beating from my parents seems like a better option than staying here and watching them reenact an episode of Love Island.
My dad spots me pretty easily as I head for them—we’re the two tallest people in the crowd—and waves me over with a crook of his fingers. I gulp and comply, heading toward him and my mom in the back hallway that leads to the movie theater.
Did I mention that my billionaire investment and accounting firm father also moonlights as a tattoo artist in his free time? Or that his and my mother’s favorite pastime is playing pranks on each other?
And I’m not talking sitting on a whoopee cushion pranks.
I’m talking hiring a mariachi band to follow their best friends around on their Valentine’s getaway trip.
I’m talking, when they were first dating, my mom bought my dad a mini pig that ended up being a real-sized pig and got him certified as an emotional support animal for my father’s nonexistent depression and anxiety just to screw with him.
Not to mention, the first day of my freshman year at Dickson, my dad showed up to my first class with a fucking backpack and school supplies, saying he’d enrolled himself in all my classes and was going to experience college again with me.
I don’t know for sure what my punishment will be, but I know it won’t be good, and it won’t be swift. I’ll probably be paying for this for the rest of my natural-born life.
“What the ever-loving fluff is going on here?” my dad asks, moving me into a scary place against the wall. His hand doesn’t press on my throat, but it lives on my shoulder, perfectly in pouncing position. “Kline texted. Said there was some big fucking blowout going on at our place.”
“Without us!” my mom adds, as though the primary complaint is that there is a big party happening without her.
My dad tsks. “Like always, Kline and his big dick are right.”
“Yeah, well, you know Gunnar,” I lie. “He’s unhinged. He… I tried to stop him, but he…he’s not right. One minute, it was just the two of us, and the next, half the city was here.”
“Is that Dr. Bunnfield?” my mom asks, watching with interest as our dentist keg stands in the kitchen.
Something smacks me in the back of the head, and when I notice Gunnar standing in the vicinity of the origin of the projectile, a wave of panic washes over me.
His eyes say I owe him, and owing Gunnar is absolutely terrifying in every imaginable way.
Plus, I owe him for the actual party and the lie about him being the reason for the party too.
So, I owe him twice. And if you include my parents in the payback-punishment scenario, it’s safe to say I am fucked.
I’ll probably have a tattoo of a unicorn on my ass by Tuesday. Or a septum piercing. Or be running drugs for the Colombians through Newark airport.
“Where is Gunnar?” my dad asks, his voice stern.
I look back to where he just was, but he’s a phantom.
If I know my brother, he’s halfway out of the city by now on one of those rickshaw carts, headed for a Devils game or something.
He doesn’t give a fuck. And when he doesn’t give a fuck, it’s as if he has magic powers.
“I don’t know,” I answer candidly. “I really don’t know. ”
Thatcher sighs, and I take a deep breath. Sighs are better than rage. Sighs are a sign of defeat.
“Well, shit. I guess we might as well get a beer, hun.”
My mom nods. “I’ve been reaming out the Bahamian police’s asses for a day straight. I need a drink. Did your brother get Heineken?”
I swear, my life is an early 2000s comedy starring Stifler’s mom.
“Uh. Yeah.” I run a hand through my hair. “Pretty sure the keg in the kitchen is.”
“Perfect. Come on, T-bag. You can hold my legs when I keg stand.”
I watch as my parents head for the party in the kitchen and take turns handstanding on the big silver drum while chaos reigns supreme around us. Philmore oinks and scurries around them, and whatshisface holds my dad’s legs when he takes a second turn.
It is hell on earth, and Finn and Scottie haven’t even managed to make it up the elevator yet. The night is so, so young.
And the only thing that could make it worse, does.
Julia hangs there with my parents and whatshisface, laughing and smiling and possibly falling a little bit in love…
With the wrong fucking guy.
My plan…foiled. Couldn’t have gone worse, actually.
Guess I’d better get busy coming up with a new one—one that’ll work.